The Menu (2022)
Review of The Menu, directed by Mark Mylod
The Menu grabbed my interest as soon as I saw that it was a thing and was going to hit theaters soon. It came out at the perfect time for me because of how I had recently purchased an AMC A List subscription, and had caught the movie going bug after I attended the New York Film Festival for work.
Triangle of Sadness officially restarted my journey of venturing out to AMC almost weekly to catch a movie, and The Menu ended up being my second movie. I saw it right around when it opened, so there were a lot of people in the audience.
For a dark comedy, no one surprisingly laughed in my theatre. I thought some of it was hilarious, but it was dead silent throughout the film.
The other reason I was interested in this movie was because A) I love Anya Taylor-Joy and the work she has been in recently and B) I’m a massive fan of Chef’s Table. One of the people involved with this movie actually worked on Chef’s Table, hence the parts of the movie showing and describing the food being ripped directly from the documentary series.
That, too, added onto the humor in a way that is very self-aware considering who was involved in that decision. Being deeply interested in the food world and industry, there’s a lot about truth, artistry, and what it means to follow your passion in this movie.
Let’s begin the review.
A girl brought on a date to a luxury restaurant finds out things are going very wrong very quickly.
In The Menu, Anya Taylor-Joy’s character is Margot. She is first seen on the pier with her date, the obnoxious Tyler (Nicholas Hoult), who is a dedicated foodie that is bringing them to a restaurant that costs over a thousand dollars a person. It is run by the award-winning chef Slowik (Fiennes), who runs the operation on its own deserted island.
Highly lauded and appraised by the critics and public, the cast of characters who join them for this dinner are quite the crew. There’s a famous food critic and her editor that will be seated at the center table, a group of Silicon Valley-esque businessmen at the far right, an older couple that comes to eat at all of Slowik’s restaurants, Tyler and Margot, and then a failed actor and his assistant.
They are greeted on the island by the very composed Elsa (Hong Chau), who gives them a brief tour and explains the amenities on the island that goes into the cooking process. They are seated for dinner, where they are joined by Slowik’s mother, who is nursing a drink and can be seen binge drinking in the corner throughout all of the movie’s events.
One of their first courses are bread dips without the bread, causing a lot of the guests to go into uproar and demand something more, showing their privilege. Slowik gives these monologues throughout the in-between meal scenes, which start to slowly descend into territory that one may describe as unhinged.
The cherry on the cake is that he has one of his sous chefs come out as he berates him and his skills, prompting the man to shoot himself right in front of the guests.
Tyler is eating up throughout the dinner, defying the rules of no pictures and even takes Margot’s food at one point. Margot is the star of this show, as she rolls her eyes at the pretentious nature of fine dining. She refuses to eat the food, thinking all of this is cursed after a certain point, then goes into the bathroom to smoke.
Slowik follows her into the bathroom, which is creepy in itself, and then demands to know she doesn’t eat. Margot holds strong and denies him the answer he seeks, which becomes a game in itself throughout the moive. Tyler’s annoyance at her smoking implies something more at the beginning of the movie, and it’s slowly revealed later on that she works in service too: Tyler hired her to come with him to the dinner.
He was fully aware that everyone was going to die, yet he brought someone who wasn’t supposed to be there.
Margot is the wild variable in the plan, which is why Elsa ends up trying to kill her later on in the movie. This ends up being in Margot’s favor, as she comes to Slowik’s room. She was given the choice of joining the staff or dying with the rich people she doesn’t belong with, but in Slowik’s room she uses the radio to call for help.
This is where the movie reminds me a lot of Triangle of Sadness; the power dynamics are completely reversed. This is Slowik’s world they’re living in at that moment, and there’s no way of getting out even with a radio. He ultimately sees this as a betrayal, but cannot deny that Margot is someone like him.
And, maybe, that is why he lets her go. He sees himself in her, and allows her the chance to live once she plays on the emotion drawstrings when asking for a really good cheeseburger.
Throughout the dinner, the people who are attending are slowly revealed to have their own set of sins. What’s hilarious about this is that Slowik and his chefs, who constantly shout yes chef to his every move, burned these onto the sides of tortillas.
The rich couple at the left discover that the husband was cheating on the wife, the businessmen’s tortillas have the fact they embezzled money and committed fraud, the personal assistant stole money from the actor (or, as later Slowik says, her sin is that she graduated from college without any student loans), and the actor just straight up offended Slowik with his dispassion for acting and what he actually does.
An ironic point considering Margot’s entire out with this situation is she realizes how Slowik was just a guy grilling burgers in Iowa once upon a time, hence her whole “I want a cheeseburger” bit.
While everyone invited clearly has something going for them, exposing how Slowik and the chefs feel exploited by the system they were placed under, the most interesting variable to me is Tyler.
He represents what reminds me of a lot of influencers are today, as he came to this restaurant literally willing to die and kill Margot just to taste his idol’s food. His fate, where he kills himself in the back after being forced by Slowik to cook a meal, can be taken in a metaphorical way as well. Those who blindly follow others, willingly ignoring the situation at hand, are never going to get anywhere.
He can pretend he’s on the same footing as Slowik by memorizing all of these fancy words, but he doesn’t appreciate him or the actual food on the table for what it is. And when he’s exposed for this and cannot even make a lamb meal, the shame he feels leads him to commit suicide. It’s a bit cruel for Slowik, but a harsh reality and warning for the dangers of such behavior.
Overall Thoughts
It’s a fun, dark movie. I only scraped the bottom of the barrel when it comes to analysis and this movie, as I am writing this out in December 2022 before it drops on HBO Max. I unfortunately only got to see it once, but I would like to watch it again to pick apart the symbolism.
The lack of bread definitely is a sign to look out for, especially as Slowik describes it as the food of the peasants and then denies it to the wealthy elites in the room. I will say, however, my favorite scene out of this entire movie was when he straight up drowns his angel investor in the middle of the ocean.
That was the most messed up scene to start the roll of events to come, and then the final scene where everyone is dressed as s’mores and then is set afire—absolutely brilliant. A basic food like a cheeseburger made into a metaphor. We love it.
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